Category Archives: Temple football

02.24.17
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Never Forget

endlosing

This is what ending a 20-game losing streak looks like.

The phrase “Bowling Green Massacre” jolted me out of my seat a couple of weeks ago, probably not for the same reason it jolted the nation.

How could Kellyanne Conway, the President’s Media Director, know about a football massacre involving Bowling Green and Temple in the mid-2000s?

That’s the only Bowling Green massacre I knew about but it turned out that she was talking about something entirely different.

In a little over a decade, though, that’s how far Temple football has come. From not just one, but two, Bowling Green Massacres (70-7 and 70-16) in consecutive seasons to flirting with the Top 25 in the last two seasons.

For those of us who were there then and are here now, it would be wise to Never Forget.

patience

I  thought about that when I heard that Geoff Collins was heavy on the Daz-like slogans while giving a halftime pep talk to the assembled—it would be a stretch to call them a crowd—group at the UCF vs. Temple basketball game on Wednesday night.

So far, Collins has been light on the recruiting and heavy on the slogans in his two months on the job.

We won’t really know about him until after the first two games, but so far he comes up a little short in comparing him to the guy who avenged the Bowling Green Massacres.

Al Golden in a little over a month to work in his first year (December, 2005 was his hiring date), Golden signed 29 players including future NFL players like Junior Galette, Andre Neblett, Alex Joseph and Steve Manieri.  That was without the benefit of signing a single target of the former coach, Bobby Wallace, WHILE hiring a staff. There was a method to Golden’s madness, too, as he said it was his intent to recruit captains of winning high school teams so they could bring that same mindset to a poisoned well at 10th and Diamond. In that first class of 29, he signed 18 team captains and all had winning seasons in their final years. Ten of the captains won league championships.

Collins has catching up to do to get to that standard, but Golden did all this on the tail end of a 20-game losing streak and helped turn this thing around.

After two months, we really don’t know if Collins will be as good as Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio or better than all three or somewhere in between.

Right now, the start is not as good as the Golden one but maybe because the culture is in place  it does not need to be. All that matters is the finish.

We should know a lot more after the Notre Dame and Villanova games.

Sunday: Fake News

02.22.17
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Temple’s Hairy Relationship

fullbacksnow

Nick Sharga is the only one not pointing fingers in this photo.

Every time someone posts a head shot of Temple football fullback Nick Sharga on social media, a comment or two will run below it like this:

“Sharga has got to do something about that hair.”

“Sharga needs a haircut.”

My response usually is two words:

“Who cares?”


Any defense that gets
pounded by Sharga inches
up the linebackers and
safeties closer to the
line of scrimmage and
becomes susceptible to
the play-action
passing game

As long as Temple has the best blocking fullback in the country—and a guy who proved more than capable the few times he had the ball in his hands—I don’t care if people think he has too much hair or is completely bald. To me, it’s always how you perform between the white lines. Everything else is superfluous.

That’s where head coach Geoff Collins comes into the story.

Collins’ added the responsibility of “coaching the fullbacks” to his duty as the CEO of the Temple football operation and this match between the follically challenged and the follically gifted should help turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine this fall.

That’s because one of the chief concerns any Temple fans felt after the transfer of power between Matt Rhule and Collins would be that the new coach would mess around with a good thing and Sharga’s impact on the team the last two seasons has been a good thing. By coaching the fullbacks, Collins has to study film of what worked well in the past and he must have been as blown away by Sharga as was this South Florida cornerback.

 

In a recent interview with Chris Franklin, new offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude mentioned a lot of his ideas but did not mention Sharga by name. That might have been disconcerting if it were not for the fact that his boss coaches the fullbacks and will want the fullbacks to be featured in any offensive game plan.

“We ran an I-Formation at Temple because we had an NFL fullback,” was the way Matt Rhule answered a question at his first Baylor press conference.

Nothing opens up passing lanes for Temple’s wide receivers—among the top group of six in the country, according to Patenaude—than establishing the run first. Nothing establishes the run better than the tailback following Nick Sharga through the hole. Any defense that gets pounded by Sharga inches up the linebackers and safeties closer to the line of scrimmage and susceptible to the play-action passing game. Fake it into the belly of, say, Ryquell Armstead or  Jager Gardner, after a few 20-yard runs and Temple receivers will be running so free through the secondary that quarterback Anthony Russo will not know which one to choose.

At least that’s the plan.

Or should be.

Collins coaching the fullbacks takes that plan one step closer to fruition and that’s the kind of hairy proposition Temple fans can get excited about.

Friday: Never Forget

Sunday: Fake News

02.18.17
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Saturday: Fun With Graphics

baller

If anyone needs help to dress up his message, it’s Geoff Collins.

 

Four days ago Temple football made a little history by hiring college football’s first SWAG (Specialist With Advanced Graphics) and, if Geoff Collins’ handwritten slogans are any indicator, no one needs a SWAG more than Collins.

You can do a lot of fun things with graphics and no one is more perfect for that job than new coordinator Dave Gerson, who I have known since he was coming to Temple games as a pre-teen in the first year of the Al Golden Era. No one loves Temple football more than Dave and that love will translate into some fun times for Temple fans in the future. It even got a mention on ESPN. Until a five-star recruit has three hats on the table (Alabama, Ohio State and Temple) and puts on the Temple hat, it might be the last time Temple football gets mentioned on an ESPN crawl for anything but a score.

Golden was the first to realize that video was a good vehicle to promote the program and, in his first year, he hired a video coordinator named Fran Duffy (not to be confused with basketball coach Fran Dunphy). At the Owls’ first Golden football banquet, the coach introduced him this way: “Despite his age, he’s the best in the business.”

Golden must have been onto something because now Duffy is the Philadelphia Eagles’ video coordinator.

So it is in that spirit that we’re going to step away from the heavier topics like recruiting and coaching carousels and revolving doors and the viable long-term future of Temple football and provide some fun with graphics. So far, Gerson has just scratched the surface with some spruced-up slogans Collins thinks about at 3 in the morning and a couple of videos but the possibilities with images are endless.

In this case, images, the separated at birth ones.

Collins looks a little like Tony Soprano. There is even a parody twitter account dedicated to the resemblance.

collinstwitter

Former Owls’ linebacker Tyler Matakevich singer Ed Sheeran look like brothers (dirty red).

redsmall

Frequent Owl photographer Zamani Feelings and District Attorney Seth Williams have never been seen in the same room and that’s probably a good thing.

together

If you have any more Temple-football related resemblances, be it a current or past player or coach looking like someone else in the public sphere, post them in the comment section below.

Monday: Back to Serious Business

02.16.17
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Mulligans and Aliens

americansked

Temple should have capitalized on having this to recruit a decent class this season.

A friend who is an amateur astronomer posted a photo of some far-off galaxy on Facebook and apologized for the quality of the photo due to atmospheric conditions.


A Virginia Tech model,
where you make a bowl
every year and reach
up and win a title
here and there, should
be a realistic
expectation for Temple
at the G5 level

My response was that someone from that galaxy probably posted a photo of the Milky Way with the same apology on, say, Cleon Facebook.

In other words, we’re not alone.

It’s a lesson Temple football fans would be wise to understand today, a couple of weeks after Signing Day. The prevalent feeling on the major Owl message board (Shawn Pastor’s OwlsDaily) is that we’re giving new head coach Geoff Collins a Mulligan on this class, but the next class better be good.

The lesson should have been don’t look back because the other beings in this football universe might be gaining on you.

That’s where the other guy comes in because new coach Charlie Strong did not need a Mulligan to haul in a significantly better class for USF and former Temple head coaches Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule did not need a Mulligan in their first transition classes. Despite working about a month, the classes that Golden, Addazio and Rhule brought in their first time were ranked significantly higher than Collins’ first class.

In between preparing for a medical procedure I should have done 10 years ago but had been putting off, I found a little bit of time to look at those classes.

The Charlie Strong class was easy to find. The other classes were much harder to quantify against this one. (You really only know four years from now but you can compare them against how they were ranked at the time.)  According to Scout.com, Strong’s USF transition class this season was ranked No. 95th with seven three stars. In roughly the same time frame to recruit, Collins had Temple was 127th with only three three-stars. In the same conference, both teams with a new head coach, a significant gap in results.

Strong did not have a championship trophy to carry around on a helicopter, either. It’s fair to compare the two classes. Because we have evidence to work with given roughly the same circumstances, Collins should have done better. You can talk all you want about how it is the “Temple Way” to recruit two stars and coach them up to four stars but if you get three stars, your mathematical chances of coaching them up to four- and five-stars improve. Temple should be OK next year, but the impact of this class won’t be felt until three or four years down the road and that is how a foundation is laid for sustainable success, not just one “up” season followed by a “down” season. At Temple, the goal should not be “up and down” seasons like so many other schools seem to have. A Virginia Tech model, where you make a bowl every year and reach up and win a title here and there, should be a realistic expectation for Temple at the G5 level.

An AAC trophy should have meant a better haul than the 2017 class Collins was able to bring to 10th and Diamond and long-term is where the impact will be felt. Without helicopters or AAC trophies, Temple coaches have done better with roughly a month to recruit.

transition

 

While it might have been tough to expect Collins to do a whole lot with this class, the evidence is there in black and white that he should have done better. In college football, getting to the top is tough but staying there is tougher so capitalizing on a championship season when you can with recruiting should have been prioritized.

There are a lot of football teams in this universe and, if you slip up one year, they could be passing you in two or three. There are no Mulligans when you are not alone.

Saturday: Fun With Graphics

02.10.17
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The Schedule: You Never Know

amcosked

Getting Stony Brook on someone else’s schedule is a plus.

Watching some of the recent episodes of Saturday Night Live, I miss some of the old characters like the ones played by the late John Belushi and Gilda Radner. (It’s still pretty good and Melissa McCarthy hit a home run with her skit on Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer, but most of the skits are dribblers to second base, pop ups or strike outs.)

That’s not what it was like in the old days when Radner and Belushi were hitting home runs and guys like Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd and Billy Murray were routinely hitting doubles off the wall.

I thought about Gilda while thumbing down the recent release of the Temple 2017 schedule.

americansked

I would like another one of these bad boys, but it’s going to be tough.

One of her catch phrases was: “You never know.”

Look at the Philadelphia Eagles’ 2006 season. Before that year even started, fans on every talk radio show penciled in the team as losing three December games, at the Redskins, at the Giants and at the Cowboys in consecutive weeks and the doom and gloom got worse when Donovan McNabb was lost for the season with a broken leg before those three games. His backup, Jeff Garcia, came in and beat the Skins (21-19), Giants (36-22) and Cowboys (24-7) to win the NFC East.

You never know.

This time a year ago, many Temple fans (not me) were saying that the losses of players like Tyler Matakevich, Matt Ioannidis, Robby Anderson and Tavon Young meant Temple would take a step back from a 10-4 season of 2015.

templesked

I looked at a still-loaded roster and argued otherwise, that this was the “step forward” year and not the step back one. Since this year’s 10-4 included a championship, I was right.

You never know if I will be as right about this one but here it goes. I hope not to be as right about this season but I already knew about the teams Temple would play in 2017 and have always said this would be the “step back” year and not the step forward one.

It’s only a step, though. Owl fans can relax because we’re not falling into the mine shaft. Most Owl fans do not know how good Anthony Russo is. Having seen pretty much his entire high school career, I do and this how I will describe his upcoming Temple time: He won’t be as impressive as P.J. Walker was in his first season, but he will make you forget Walker in seasons two through four. (He’s not as elusive as Walker, but let’s not kid ourselves. P.J. was no Fran Tarkenton, Bobby Douglas or even Russell Wilson in the important skill of eluding pass rushers.)

So I stand by that prediction that it will be a slight step back, not a huge one.

I thought before Matt Rhule left that it would be a positive year for him to go 7-5 with a bowl win in 2017 and I think that is the measuring stick for new head coach Geoff Collins. If he goes 7-5, he’s just as good a coach as Rhule but I think there is a good chance he could go 8-4 or better. Listen, no one expects him to go 10-4 again and, if he does, Ed Foley is probably coaching Temple’s third-straight bowl loss.

The expectation here is eight wins and a bowl win and that’s in the “step-back” year because 2018 figures to be even better.

There is plenty of talent left on this team, even if you do not expect them to beat Notre Dame, Tulsa, Navy or South Florida. I’m not buying Houston. Wasn’t Temple the champion in the same league Houston could not win last  year? Didn’t Houston struggle on the road against teams like SMU, UConn and Navy in the last two years? Did not Temple win at all three of those places? I rest my case. Ryquell Armstead running behind the lead blocking of Nick Sharga with the explosive receivers Temple has is a good way to start. The defense should be outstanding once again. Any line that has Jacob Martin and Sharif Finch as the ends, and Karamo Dioubate, Michael Dogbe, Greg Webb and Freddy Booth-Lloyd in the middle with a secondary of Champ Chandler, Mike Jones, Delvon Randall and Artrel Foster will bring Mayhem.

The way Temple seasons have worked recently, though, is that they always have beaten someone you penciled them in for a loss before the season (i.e., Vanderbilt, 2014; Penn State 2015 and South Florida 2016) and always lost to someone you never expected them to lose to in the same season. Can we break that cycle this year?

I think so. Just hold serve.

If Collins holds serve, he will be our guy and probably hang around to coach the bowl win.

However, as Emily Latella would say: “You never know” but, gun to my head, I would pick eight over six or even seven and I will stand by that number.

(No posts Sunday or Tuesday due to minor surgery but God-willing will return Thursday)

02.08.17
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Press Conference Translations

alexholley

Fool us once, shame on you.

Fool us twice, shame on me.

Fool us three times, and we never get fooled again.

That’s where the relationship now stands between many (not all) Temple fans and new head coach Geoff Collins and very little of it is the poor guy’s fault. In fact, it might be the way the fan base accepts the revolving aspect of every subsequent coach who walks through the Edberg-Olson door.

In various ways, Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule pledged fidelity to the Cherry and White only to exit stage left at the very first opportunity to jump to a Power 5 program. The last coach said it would take a perfect job for him to leave Temple and he left for a job that is far from perfect. Golden left for a school, Miami, that he knew was about to be hit with sanctions. Addazio left for a Boston College team that went winless in the two major sports (football and men’s basketball) in the ACC last year. That’s pretty hard to do.

Meanwhile, Temple wasn’t a bad job in comparison. The Owls won a pair of AAC East title and an overall title under Rhule, and beat a Big 10 school, an ACC school and a SEC school in prior five years.

What Coach Collins Really Said …. Translations
“It’s been a busy month-and-a-half since I last saw you guys.” “Between press conferences, my ex-buddy Matt Rhule stole two of my recruits.”
“It doesn’t matter what the outside people say about the number of stars we have. We play. We’re tough. We’re going to work. I think that’s a pretty special edge to have.” “I’m going to have to do what Matt did. Coach the two stars up to four stars. It’ll be a little different from Florida, where I could coach a four-star up to a five-star so we’ll see what happens.”
“We went into Florida, we went into Georgia and in the future, those are going to be targets for us but in this day and age, especially in the culture that’s in Philadelphia, we make sure we surround this area and supplement people from Florida and Georgia and other places.” “Matt got Harrison Hand and Rob Saulin to decommit from Temple to go to Baylor and I tried to get a couple of the kids I was recruiting for the Gators to do the same, but it didn’t work out.”
“The way the recruiting weekends have been set up, the staff has done an amazing job … they dove in and whatever needed to be done, they did it.” “I wish the basketball team would have had a packed house for one of those weekends so we had a little more juice in the building.”
“It’s nice to walk around this great town and get noticed. To get noticed in Philadelphia, it’s mind-blowing.” “I like South Philly macaroni.”

So excuse some Temple fans for looking for clues about how the new guy will handle the Elephant in the Room. There have been two tests of Collins so far and he has not passed them. In the press conference, he stumbled over a question from Zach Gelb about promising current recruits he would be here when they graduate by saying he tells them only to be concerned about the present.

Keeping all of the Rhule recruits and bringing in a good core group of three-star recruits who would be key contributors three years down the line would have been another sign that Collins was planning to stay for a while, but this class screams short-term solutions and not long-term ones. Plugging immediate holes, like cornerback, but not addressing long-term needs for accomplished linemen on both sides of the ball could be interpreted as the moves of a guy who plans to be here one or two years at most and bolt like Usain.

This is a dangerous development for at least a couple of reasons. One, at least Rhule followed the “Golden Rule” of Al that he was here to build a “foundation of brick, not of straw.” Even though we all knew Golden was looking to get out, he didn’t cut corners. He built the program by recruiting what he called a “full team” every year, 25 guys (11 offense, 11 defense, a couple of specialists) and then redshirting the guys who needed the year in the weight room. Addazio departed from that plan by burning redshirts and also recruiting for immediate needs (i.e, Montel Harris to replace Bernard Pierce).

The second, and probably more important, residue of this is that this forces Temple to keep hiring new head coaches every couple of years. If Collins is the “home run” Rhule says he is, the next guy after him might not be. No one can expect Pat Kraft to make a great hire every time. Charlie Theokas hired Jerry Berndt and Ron Dickerson and Dave O’Brien hired Bobby Wallace. The recent run of Golden-Daz-Rhule has been decent, but the percentages don’t look good if you look at the big picture.

Even Babe Ruth didn’t hit home runs every time he came to the plate. The next guy is just as likely to pop out as he is to slam one over the fence. One day Temple is going to have to find a way to remove that revolving door from the E-0 and make it a vault.

Or at least one of the good ones is going to decide his Acres of Diamonds is right here.

Friday: The Schedule

02.06.17
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Keeping Up With the Joneses

In order to keep up with the Joneses in college football, new Temple football head coach Geoff Collins went out and got one.

One of the themes of Collins’ Signing Day press conference was an emphasis on the players that were already at Temple and filling in any holes that he might have come across in film study in the month after his introductory press conference.

With the signing of Mike Jones, the Owls filled a huge hole and his meshing with the team will be something to look at from now until Cherry and White Day, hopefully held at the new soccer complex. (No announcement yet, but the 2,000 additional seats there would make it a no-brainer.)

jonesstats

Mike Jones’ career stats

Maybe Collins killed  two holes with one new bird, because the Owls needed a starting cornerback opposite last year’s starter, Artrel Foster, and a game-breaking punt returner (for years ) and Jones seems to be the perfect guy to do both jobs.


While the class Collins
reeled in might have
been the weakest of
the post Bobby Wallace
Era, an argument can be
made that, in Jones,
the Owls might have signed
the single best talent
of any of their recent classes

While the class Collins reeled in might have been the weakest of the post Bobby Wallace Era, an argument can be made that, in Jones, the Owls might have signed the single best talent of any of their recent classes. (The only other player of his stature would have been Montel Harris, but that came at a time where the Owls were not expected to contend for anything. These Owls are.)

Also, what have the Owls lacked since Delano Green? A a guy who could flip the field on any given punt. The Owls went through one year where they gave up the punt as an offensive play when they used a possession receiver, John Christopher, to essentially fair catch the ball. He averaged a whopping 2.0 yards per return. Since then, they have been using starting DBs as punt returners for the last two seasons, so don’t expect Collins—whose philosophy is very similar to former head coach Matt Rhule–to ask Jones to back away from that challenge.

Jones also seems to be the most talented punt returner to come to Temple since Positive Man Green did the job in the Al Golden Era. On November 10, Jones returned a punt 90 yards for a touchdown in a win over one-time Temple foe Delaware State. His return was the second-longest in NCCU history. That was not the only time Jones starred in a win over a former Temple foe, as, in 2013, he had two interceptions in a 40-13 win over Charlotte.

If you can flip the field with a dynamite punt returner, and Jones certainly is that, you give your team another great offensive play. On defense, he is a lock-down corner who ESPN NFL draft analyst Todd McShay said: “Mike Jones stands out to me as the best” of a list of late round draft choices. That was for this draft, in Philadelphia, in the spring of 2017. As it turns out, Jones will be in Philadelphia in the spring of 2017, but the reason will be to play football in order to move a few spots up the draft board.

Jones is doing a very smart thing by coming to Philadelphia, not for the draft but to show his talents as early as nationally televised game at Notre Dame in September. If Jones picks off a pair and takes one to the house, he will get noticed on a stage much larger than he has ever acted before.

Making impact plays against Notre Dame before a NBC television audience could be a perfect way to start a memorable final season.

Wednesday: Translating Signing Day

02.04.17
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The Curse of Russell Conwell

curse

Forget about the famous baseball curses cast on the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, which were only recently overcome.

There is one curse that is still alive in sports and that is the Curse of Russell Conwell.

Somewhere up there, Conwell has cast a curse on the last three coaches to leave his beloved Temple University and its football program.

russell

Al Golden left for Miami and was greeted with sanctions that made it impossible to win there. Steve Addazio has taken his three-yards-and-a-cloud of dust offense to Boston College and went winless in the ACC two years ago. The jury is still out on Addazio, but it is leaning toward a unanimous conviction. Matt Rhule left Temple no more than two months ago and could hit with sanctions that would make the ones Golden received looked like a slap on the wrist.

Whatever happens going forward, you could win a lot of money in Vegas betting against any of the three having a long winning career as a college football head coach.

These are the facts that we know to this date and it is not a pretty picture. New Temple head coach Geoff Collins would be wise to stare at this portrait and get some deep meaning out of it.

All three of those coaches could have had a job at Temple for life—or at least a very long rope with to work with—but all three thought the grass was greener on the other side of the Chodoff Field fence.  In fact, there has been no grass on the other side of that fence, only dust. The only value in the move was monetary and money will not last forever.

Conwell, in some type of afterlife, must be working some serious Voodoo pins with Golden, Daz and Rhule bobble heads.

About the time Conwell founded Temple University, he was the best-known lecturer in the United States, playing to sellout crowds who wanted to hear his story of the man who traveled the world in search of riches only to find “Acres of Diamonds” in his own backyard.

Most of the Temple coaches who found substance in Conwell’s story went on to finish with better careers at Temple than they would have leaving on their own for far-off places. Harry Litwack went to a pair of Final Fours. Skip Wilson won over 1,000 baseball games without the benefit of warm-weather recruits. Under Wilson, the Owls went to a pair of College World Series. John Chaney made five Elite Eights. Wayne Hardin went 80-52-2 and made the College Football Hall of Fame. All made Temple their final stop on the coaching highway.

Those, by any standards, are success stories. Leave Temple or attempt to use this great institution as a stepping stone and the story will not have a happy ending. Compare and contrast those success stories to the ones facing the last three Temple football coaches who left on their own.

Maybe when Collins comes to that inevitable fork in the road, he will take a good look at the map and head down the road less (recently) traveled.  Russell Conwell may be watching from above.

Monday: Looking Ahead to Spring Ball

Wednesday: Press Conference Translations

01.29.17
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5 Reasons To Get Excited About Geoff Collins

The only thing that would make Geoff Collins more appealing to Temple fans is that John Chaney’s love for, success at and loyalty to Temple rubs off on that handshake and exceeds any dollar signs tossed in front of him.

collins

We were not able to photoshop a Temperor hat on this graphic.

In this cyber world, you detect clues about what is happening by simply reading a man’s twitter feed and that is certainly true with new Temple football head coach Geoff Collins.

Taking out the retweets, the last five original Collins’ posts thank Under Armour (an apparel company) for a welcome package; another is about how he is proud of a former player (Brian Poole), for making the Super Bowl, a tribute to Temple academic excellence at and a posting a graphic about Temple TUFF.

Compare that to former head coach Matt Rhule’s last five tweets and all are welcoming new recruits.


While Saint Matt Rhule
might have been demoted
to a more middle class
part of Heaven by poaching
a pair of Temple recruits,
the fact that Collins did
not poach Florida recruits
is a good thing, not a bad
one. Even the vilified Steve
Addazio promised he would not
go after the Temple guys
he recruited on the way out
the E-O door and at least Daz
kept his promise. Taking two
Temple commits is unethical
and a pretty classless way
to thank a school that gave
you so much.

No one can really say that translates to Rhule recruiting success versus Collins’ recruiting success in essentially the same time frame, but the clues are the clues. Rhule has filled the 25 scholarships he has this year and most of them are three-star talents and above. Collins is sitting on 15 right now after having lost a couple of Temple commits, one a three-star.

Of the five things we can get excited about for our new coach, recruiting—at least this year and at least a few days ahead of National Signing Day—does not appear to be one of them. As Cubs’ fans used to say, wait until next year.

We’ve always wrote we’d be honest with you and this would not turn out to be Matt Rhule Pravda and we kept that promise and we will keep it that way with Collins. Had Collins brought with him a couple of Florida commits, like Rhule did with two Temple commits, we might be singing a different tune. You can talk all you want about this being Collins’ first recruiting class and most of them were Rhule’s guys but, to be fair, Rhule walked into the same new situation at Baylor and was more successful.

Addazio, Rhule and Al Golden’s first classes will probably all be rated higher than Collins’ first class.

We’re calling it as we see it and he did not hit that first recruiting drive straight down the middle.

There are, though, five things to get excited about :

rhulepromise

5—The Man Appears Principled

While Saint Matt Rhule might have been demoted to a more middle class part of Heaven by poaching a pair of Temple recruits, the fact that Collins did not poach Florida recruits is a good thing, not a bad one. Even the vilified Steve Addazio promised he would not go after the Temple guys he recruited on the way out the E-O door and at least Daz kept his promise. Taking two Temple commits is unethical a pretty classless way to thank a school that gave you so much. If Collins would have retaliated by taking two Baylor commits, that would have been impressive. Still, there is something to be said about the man not raiding his fellow employer.

4—He Was Rhule’s Boss

As Rhule’s boss, both at Albright and Western Carolina, you can assume that he had the answers and Rhule had the questions back then. Now Temple is getting the guy with the answers.

3—He Knows The Program

When he was hired, Collins said he followed the Temple program closely over the last four years and actually participated in key philosophical changes in the program. Since the only key philosophical change in the program was going from a spread with multiple wide receivers to a pro-type play action using a fullback, Collins can theoretically be credited for curing the Owls’ anemic offense. He will come in and hit the ground running, literally.

2—Hit Home Run With Key Assistants

Both Dave Patenaude (pronounced Patton Nude, which is not a pretty picture) and Taver Johnson seem to know what the plan is to take Temple the next level. Patenaude is going to continue to use the fullback and two tight ends, but add slinging the ball deep to the formula. Johnson should continue the success on the defensive side of the ball and was a better  DC at Miami (Ohio) than Phil Snow was at the same level (Eastern Michigan).

1—Game Day Coaching

This was a weakness of Rhule’s first two years. We do not know for sure, but Collins’ understanding of the program and the offensive and defensive philosophies sets him up as a better game day coach that Rhule was, who fumbled and stumbled in his first two seasons.

Tuesday: What To Expect

01.27.17
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5 Reasons Recruits Should Pick Temple

There is no place  you can feel the college spirit like Temple University.

When Raheem Blackshear flipped his commitment from Temple to Michigan State, the first thought to occur to me was wondering if he had a chance to sit down and talk with fellow Bucks County high school superstars Colin Thompson and Jake O’Donnell.

Both Thompson, who is from the same high school as Blackshear (Archbishop Wood) and O’Donnell, who is from nearby Central Bucks East, were blinded by the big-time program allure and committed to the University of Florida and the University of Miami, respectively.

highpoint

If Blackshear had a chance to speak with those two, they no doubt would have told them that, while their experiences at Florida and Miami were nice, looking for those Acres of Diamonds in far-away places proved to be elusive.

They found them in their own backyards at Temple, where they both went out as champions of the American Athletic Conference where ALL (and not just some) of their family members could see them play in person.

Both have prestigious Temple degrees and already are networking with Temple alumni which set them up for a great future in the town where they will conduct their business.

Those are just a couple of sensible reasons to look for Acres of Diamond in your own backyard. Here are five others:

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5—Great Education

Temple is the sixth-largest educator of professionals in the United States and its Fox Business School is ranked among the best in the nation. More than 90 percent of the players in all of college football never make it to the pros (that includes CFL and Arena Football), so having a respected sheepskin to fall back on is a big plus and Temple has that respect.

4—Championships

The football Owls have won the last two AAC East titles and capped that with an overall championship this year. They have had two consecutive 10-win seasons and appear poised for a nice run of more double-digit win seasons.

3—The League

Current Temple players in the NFL include Muhammad Wilkerson  and Robby Anderson of the Jets, Brandon McManus of the Broncos, Tahir Whitehead of the Lions, Rod Streeter of the 49ers, Tavon Young of the Ravens, Matt Ioannidis of the Redskins and Tyler Matakevich of the Steelers. Soon to be joining them are Dion Dawkins, Nate Hairston and Haason Reddick, among others. If you make an impact in a large television market like Philadelphia, you will get a chance to make millions in the league. That league is the ultimate goal, though, made possible because the AAC is a great league with wins over Oklahoma, Louisville, Penn State, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Florida State, among others, in the short span of the last two years. Temple is the champion of that great league.

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2—Television

All of the Owls’ games are on national television so, while they are outside the Power 5, their status as the No. 1 team in the nation’s fourth-largest media market assures plenty of TV eyeballs for every game.

1—Family

Temple and Philadelphia is right in the center of a geographical area that includes 46 percent of the nation’s population, meaning a home game is within a manageable day’s drive for any recruit from Boston to the north to the North Carolina border. Family to Temple means more than geography, though. It means a strong bonding between the family of the players who are here and the family of fans who have been here. The players and coaches may come and go but the friendships remain forever.

I know I will always remain friends with the family of our last bowl-winning quarterback, Chris Coyer, and I cherish the friendships I have with the family of Adrian and Averee Robinson and so many other ex-Temple players.

That’s part of the reason why we call this Temple Football Forever.

If you have any other good reasons for recruits to pick Temple, please add them in the comments below.

Sunday: Five Reasons To Get Fired Up About Coach Collins

Tuesday: Bracing For Impact

Thursday: An Honest Evaluation of This Class